The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Business Roundtable, and the Association of School Business Officials also support the Common Core.(Photo: Flickr)

Business and education groups will be in Columbus this week to defend the state’s Common Core curriculum in House hearings.

House Bill 597 would repeal the K through 12 math and English standards, which are set to go into effect this school year.

Business groups like the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce have been on board ever since Ohio passed its version of the standards in 2010. Chris Kershner with the chamber says companies depend on schools for a certain key part of the supply chain.

“The business community is the consumer of the educational product. Students are the educational product. They are going through the education system so that they can be an attractive product for business to consume and hire as a workforce in the future,” Kershner says.

Kershner says U.S. graduates also have to compete in a more and more global market—so national minimum standards make sense. The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Business Roundtable, and the Association of School Business Officials also support the Common Core.

Certainly some specific companies will benefit: for example, two national private testing companies, ETS and Pearson, are contracted to create the new tests for Ohio and 12 other states. But contrary to what some opponents have argued, the curriculum isn’t federally regulated and states aren’t required to purchase certain books or lessons.

Opponents of Common Core say the state erred in adopting the benchmarks, which they say cede local control of education to outside groups.

“The business community is the consumer of the educational product. Students are the educational product. They are going through the education system so that they can be an attractive product for business to consume and hire as a workforce in the future,” Kershner says.

The business community is looking at our children as products. The education industry also looks at our children as products. I’m disgusted by this statement. The Chamber of Commerce should have no say in how our children are taught. In fact, all of these special interest groups presenting this week in Columbus are money focused, not child focused. Listen to them this week and really hear what they are saying. Compare it to last week’s testimony.

teeky2

Parents and students are the consumers of schools and schooling. I object to students being termed “educational product” just as I object to teachers and workers being referred to as “human capital”. Business has its place in society, but not as the self-appointed king of the world.

Charley

CC was NOT developed by our educators. They were developed by corporations like Achieve, Inc. and Pearson, Inc. and were copyrighted by 2 private corporations with confusing institutional names The National Governors Association for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Our teachers had nothing to do with it – and our teachers can’t change the standards.

Many organizations have received money from the Gates foundation just to promote CC.

Ohio Department of Education received $300k from the Gates Foundation.
Ohio PTA’s national parent received a $499,962 Gates Foundation grant last spring “to educate parents and communities on the Common Core Standards and empower leaders to create the changes needed in their school systems.” The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has received over $2.5 million from Gates Foundation. Ohio Grantmakers Forum was awarded a $1 million Gates Foundation grant “to support the work of a coordinated, common college ready agenda and advocacy strategy for Ohio’s statewide education advocacy organizations.”

The only folks benefiting from CC are the education material peddlers selling everybody snake oil.

teeky2

“Business groups” are not educators. Why should their opinions on Common Core even count for much, unless they feel entitled to direct education in the state. The fact that business does feel this entitlement is related to the fact that the CCSS were largely written, paid for, and sold to the federal DOE by billionaire businessmen, instead of teachers, the real experts in education. Maybe we need a week when educators can testify about how businesses and corporations should work.

Prospective Ohio drivers would see added training requirements and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles would be allowed to accept credit and debit cards under a state transportation budget that easily cleared the Ohio House on Tuesday.